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Back Issues, and a Few Thoughts on Politics

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Folks, my back is really acting up at the moment.  Which is not conducive to blogging or any form of writing — nor to a lot of editing, either, truth be told, though it is good for planning.  But I can’t let the nonsense going on right now go by without a few comments, either . . . so here we go.

First, last night’s “face-off” between President Barack Obama and Speaker John Boehner was, to my mind, rather underwhelming.  These two people obviously don’t like each other, don’t trust each other, would rather not have anything to do with one another, but have to work together to try to do the country’s business — and are failing miserably.  I place more of the blame on Boehner than on the POTUS, partly because Boehner has been a Representative for a lot longer than Obama has been President, and partly because when the Republicans gained control of the House after the 2010 elections, they promised to create jobs — not do all this screwing around.

I keep wanting to ask Boehner, “Mr. Speaker, where are the jobs?”  Because that’s what he, and by extension his whole party, kept saying, and that’s why they got elected — on a job creating platform.  But once they got in there, they decided “job creation” really meant “protect the wealthy at all costs from any form of tax increase, no matter how benign.”  And they’ve acted on the latter belief, insisting even though they should know better that this is what the American public wants them to do — then have pushed the real cost of lowering the deficit onto the middle classes and below, who can’t afford it and are already paying too much, proportionately, as it is.

Now, the Republican argument is that the lower 50% of income earners “pay no income tax at all.”  That is, to an extent, true.  However, we do pay FICA, where many high earners don’t, meaning we’re helping to sustain Social Security; we pay sales tax, and cannot tap into loopholes that get part of those taxes back as can the wealthiest Americans when they buy a new yacht or a second or third home in order to use it for two weeks a year on vacation.  So proportionately, the lowest earners are paying more than the high earners, which in effect gets blood from a stone as low earners have very little to work with in the first place.

Then, with all the picayune nonsense going on in Washington, DC, I’m still having to put up with the Wisconsin Republicans in the state Senate screwing around.  These guys have decided they will pass a bill that agrees with the state’s Assembly bill — that will hold one week of benefits from new unemployment claimants, starting on January 1, 2012 — on August 1, 2011, because that’s just one short week away from the recall elections for state Senators Darling, Cowles, Harsdorf, Kapanke, Hopper, and Olsen.  The Rs have decided to do this because they think that’ll make their Senators look more compassionate, of all things . . . they like the timing, and don’t care that they’re making people who’ve not had any extended benefits since April 16, 2011, wait even more for their money.

Me, I find this behavior terrible.  Shallow.  Rude.  Obnoxious.  And reprehensible, too, because these Senators should know better.

The whole bit of difference between the two bills was there because the Senate Rs wanted to look more compassionate (the Senate voted 30-3 against withholding the first week of unemployment from people, knowing full well the Assembly would pass a different version of the bill so they’d be able to “have their cake and eat it, too.”), yet how compassionate is it to make people wait another week for their money? 

Because, remember, this is a Federal program.  The money is already there.  The WI Rs are just sitting on it, perhaps collecting interest on it, rather than paying it out — so there’s no excuse for this whatsoever.

At any rate, this is why every single last R Senator in Wisconsin (with the possible exception of Dale Schultz) should be recalled — they’ve lost touch with the real people in our state, who are suffering.  And only seem to care about the wealthiest people in the state, protecting wealthy corporations and their tax loopholes . . . then wonder why they’re all in danger of being recalled on the first available date (which for eleven other Rs is January 3, 2012; two are recallable now, Grothman and Lazich, and may yet end up recalled by the end of the year for all I know).

Written by Barb Caffrey

July 26, 2011 at 6:52 pm

Posted in United States Politics, United States Presidents, Wisconsin politics, Wisconsin recall elections, Writing

WI Rs dither over Unemployment Benefits Extension . . . while National Rs Continue their Do-Nothing Ways

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Folks, again I have two topics for discussion.

First, the Wisconsin Republicans have acted up again, refusing to pass a bill to extend unemployment benefits — or, rather, refusing to pass the same, exact bill.  The Republican-controlled Assembly passed a bill that requires a one-week wait for unemployment benefits (a one-week, unpaid wait, at that), while the Republican-controlled state Senate passed a bill that did not require a wait and passed that decisively, 30-3 in an unusual bipartisan vote.

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s headline put it, “Dispute on Jobless Benefits Puts Unemployed in a Bind.”  A relevant quote from the article:

Republicans who control the Senate and Assembly agree they should accept the federal money to allow the unemployed to collect benefits for an extra 13 weeks – in part because that won’t hurt the state’s struggling unemployment insurance fund. But the two houses cannot agree on whether to make laid-off workers wait a week for their initial benefits – a move that would save the fund money.

The main problem is, some in the Assembly believe it will take months to resolve this issue — months, when some Wisconsinites have been out of unemployment since April 16, 2011!  As stated in this article:

“It’s not something we’re going to leave hanging out there,” said Andrew Welhouse, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau). “It’s just trying to come to the right answer. We all understand the stakes here.”

The senator’s brother, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon), has said he wants to fix the problem soon, but added that lawmakers might not be able to do it until September.

As you see — it’s July 22, 2011, right now as it’s just clicked over to midnight as I write this.  Not doing anything until September would indeed take months, at a time when even Republican Gov. Scott  Walker admits that unemployment rates are too high in parts of the state (including my own Racine, WI).

I’m sorry; I agree fully with Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona), who said this:

“It is due to incredible incompetence or coldhearted calculation that we are delaying passage of this bill . . . It’s time we recognized that the workers in Wisconsin that have lost their jobs are not toys to be played with,” Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona) said.

Miller is exactly right.  He knows what happened here; the Senate Rs, six of them facing impending recall elections, voted to say they want unemployment extensions done right now and not to wait a week before any worker receives benefits, either — partly because they are facing recall, and this looks good for them.  But the Senate Rs knew full well that the Assembly Rs wouldn’t play ball here; none of them are facing recall (they aren’t eligible for recall until January of ’12), and they don’t seem to be very concerned about the possibility of a recall election, either, as normally their seats would be up at the end of ’12 anyway.

So what the Senate Rs did is this — they figured they’d “have their cake and eat it, too.”  They did this in order to look compassionate, but their real beliefs are probably in line with the Assembly Rs, who aren’t budging and won’t budge, even though many people in Wisconsin haven’t had any unemployment since April 16 of this year and won’t get any until this bill is finally passed.

As of now, the Senate will have to take it up again next Tuesday, July 26, 2011.  They may well not do anything other than affirm their same bill; this will once again allow themselves to look good, while knowing that the Wisconsin unemployed workers remain shut out of the decisions . . . remember, unemployment insurance is not welfare.  It is our right, as workers, as we’ve paid into it and deserve to be able to tap into it when times are very hard and bad (as they are now).

I implore the Wisconsin Legislature, Rs and Ds alike, to do the right thing here.  Pass the unemployment benefits extension now.  Worry about the one-week cut later.

As for anything else, the national Rs also do not impress me with their willingness to work together toward anything.  The deficit talks remain stalled out, with word tonight according to Ed Schultz at MSNBC and Keith Olbermann of Current TV that President Obama has met with both Rs and Ds and wants his “Grand Bargain” to take place.

Don’t know about the “Grand Bargain” yet?  Well, it’s simple — it would cut the deficit by cutting three essential social programs, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security in exchange perhaps for some tax revenue (maybe by raising taxes on the top 1% of the country, maybe by closing tax loopholes).  Yet Social Security is running at a surplus — any short-term “deficit” there is because the Congress keeps raiding the “lock-box,” nothing more — and while I support an end to waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and Medicare (including disallowing really expensive medicine — something that costs over $500 monthly and will not add any life expectancy to a cancer victim, say — unless that expensive medicine actually helps to restore life and health to someone so that person can re-enter the work force after his/her health crisis has been taken care of), I do not support any other changes to these essential programs.

Basically, there are now three groups of people in Washington, DC.  Those who will work with others in both parties.  Those who will work with others in their own party only.  And those who won’t work with anyone, period, because they think raising the debt ceiling is morally wrong.  

While I have some sympathy, emotionally anyway, for this last group, no one has ever been sent to Washington, DC, to completely obstruct the process of governing.  Instead, they’re sent to work and make the best deals they can, so refusing to do so is pointless and absurd, not to mention a waste of taxpayer money.  Because last I checked, it’s the taxpayers — i.e., all of us — who pay the salaries of the House of Reps.

So what we have here isn’t just a “failure to communicate,” as the movie actress once said.  It’s a failure to even understand what communication is, much less do anything about it.

And all the while, the United States of America’s credit rating starts to slip . . . people start to worry about losing their jobs (for example, much of the Federal Aviation Administration is being held up due to similar problems and they could end up “furloughed” — meaning they don’t get paid — as early as Saturday) . . . fewer people work, meaning the tax base gets lower overall, meaning the deficit increases.  All very, very bad things.

President Obama, by putting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on the table for discussion, has caused some of the Rs — those willing to work at compromise — to salivate at the bit.  But as President, Mr. Obama is supposed to be working on behalf of all Americans, including the least among us.  Those who are ill.  Those who are helpless.  Those who are on fixed incomes, such as those on Social Security who have nothing else.  Not only for the needs of the wealthy, none of those likely to need those three programs.

I stand with Ed Schultz and Keith Olbermann tonight (among others), who wonder what this Democratic President is doing by even thinking about cutting these essential programs.  Because it’s just not right to kick anyone when they’re down . . . not the poor, not the disabled, not the helpless, not anyone. 

And that’s all cuts to those three programs will do.  Hurt those who cannot help themselves.

Written by Barb Caffrey

July 22, 2011 at 12:22 am

Posted in Barack Obama, Keith Olbermann, Politics, Scott Walker, The Economy, United States Politics, United States Presidents, Wisconsin politics, Wisconsin recall elections

Ed Schultz — From Hero, to Goat, to . . . ?

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Ed Schultz, for the past several months, has done a great job reporting on what’s going on in Wisconsin.  Schultz was probably the first person to take an interest in the protests against Governor Scott Walker (a Republican), and he went to Madison early on during the protests to show the real Wisconsinites who were upset over Walker’s proposed “budget-repair bill.”  These protests broke out partly because the Wisconsin 14 — the Democratic state Senators — went to Illinois to filibuster the proposed legislation, because the WI 14 knew that if they weren’t there, the Senate would not have a quorum as per Wisconsin rules on financial matters, and partly because Walker’s proposal was extremely unpopular.   I gave Schultz great credit for doing all this, as he understood the story from the Democratic and Independent perspective, and he explained it accurately — one of the first, and best, to do so overall.

But then, yesterday, he said something truly inappropriate regarding Laura Ingraham, a right-wing radio talk show host.   His comment was about our current President, Barack Obama, being photographed taking a swig of beer in Ireland, and how when George W. Bush did the same thing, no one complained — and the substance of that is true.   But he took it a step further when he called Ms. Ingraham a very nasty name on his Sirius XM Radio talk show — I will not reproduce this epithet — and now, MSNBC has suspended him for a week without pay.

Here’s a link regarding the whole mess:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/25/ed-schultz-to-take-unpaid_n_867186.html

Schultz went from a progressive hero of sorts — someone willing to tell the truth about why people were so upset in Wisconsin (it wasn’t just in Madison; there were protests all over the state including Union Grove, a little town of 4,322, a place that usually votes strongly Republican but wasn’t having any of Scott Walker’s proposal to do away with collective bargains for public-employee unions), someone who was willing to stand up for the “little guys” who are rarely talked about by the media — to a goat.  And an extremely smelly and foul-tempered goat, at that.

Now Ed Schultz has been suspended from MSNBC.   According to what I just listened to during the first segment of his “Ed Show” tonight, Schultz offered to take an unpaid leave of absence because he recognized that his behavior was beyond the pale.   He said he tried to get a hold of Ms. Ingraham to apologize, left a message for her apologizing, and will continue to try to get a hold of her because in any context, what he said was not acceptable. 

And he’s right — it wasn’t.

Schultz also discussed how he has failed, big-time, on this issue.  That he expects better of his children and grandchildren, and how can he possibly set a good example for them when he has fallen down on the job this way.  And that he hopes to do better in the future and that he promises that he will never, ever, use the incendiary verbiage that came out of his mouth during a radio ad-lib — that he will, indeed, do better.

Mr. Schultz, I commend you for apologizing and for admitting how wrong you were to do this.   I hope you will remember this day, not because of your humiliation, but because you were right to apologize and to step aside for a week (or however long it may turn out to be) to get your head right.  Your speech tonight showed true remorse and I hope that you will remember that no matter how much you dislike someone — no matter how stupidly they may behave — they are still a human being, and they don’t deserve to be called nasty names.

An insult to one woman is an insult to all of us, Mr. Schultz; I am not a fan of Ms. Ingraham, but I believe very strongly that you shouldn’t have insulted her.  You lowered the tone of the discussion, and that was indefensible, as you said yourself this evening — and the only possible good that could come out of this is a frank discussion about why the term you used is inappropriate for anyone with taste, class, or an education. 

My advice is this: learn from this.  Become a better person.  And please, please, continue to focus on the real people who’ve been hurt by Walker’s proposals in Wisconsin,  because that is where your true gift lies.

Written by Barb Caffrey

May 25, 2011 at 9:47 pm

Posted in Barack Obama, Criticism/critique, Pop Culture/TV criticism, Scott Walker, temporary Governor, Truly horrible behavior, United States Politics, United States Presidents, Wisconsin politics, Wisconsin protests, Wisconsin recall elections

State of the Union: Awful, awful, awful.

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Folks, I don’t even know where to start regarding last night’s State of the Union speech (henceforth to be referred to by its acronym, SotU), except for one word, repeated three times: awful, awful, awful.

Why would I choose to repeat one word three times?  Well, the state of the United States right now — or of our Union — is exactly that.  Awful. 

That the President of the United States, Barack Obama, talked around the problem rather than talked about the problem, is also exactly that — awful. 

And finally, that the pundits did not call the President to account for not coming right out and saying, “Right now, people in the United States are suffering and rather than talk about nonsensical things or irrelevant things, I’m going to talk about them,” they, too, can only be summed up by just one word (you guessed it): awful.

I listened to the SotU last night and was appalled.  Barack Obama is a very smart, literate, intelligent man who knows better than this.  The American people were waiting for him to say, “I know it’s bad.  I’m working on trying to make it better.  I really think these things will work,” and only pick a few things to discuss — not so many things that after an hour of draining words, you don’t have anything to show for it but a bunch of meaningless quotes that won’t mean anything to the average person at all.

Yes, I get it that we need Green Jobs.  Hillary R. Clinton ran for President in 2008 and this was one of her platforms; I am for Green Jobs.  I see how they could actively help the economy if carefully managed, because Green Jobs won’t be able to be created overnight.

But talking about that as one of the hallmarks of your plan is not something most people care about.

No, Mr. President.  What we care about is simple.  The economy, stupid.  (From Bill Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid,” not meant as a pejorative.)

The economy is in the toilet.  Unemployment is horrible — over 9% and rising — and the only reason it’s not well over 15% is because people have fallen off the rolls and have “aged off” the system.   No provision has been made for these people, which is beyond disheartening; it’s as if the people in Washington, DC, including the President of the United States who should know better, have turned their backs on these folks (collectively called the 99ers).  They can’t find work not because they aren’t qualified: most are.  Not because they don’t want to work: they do.  But because there aren’t anywhere near enough jobs for all the people who want work.  That’s the fact, and it wasn’t even touched last night.

Nor was the second-biggest issue that’s currently on people’s minds — guns, or at least semi-automatic handguns with extra-large clips** wielded by people who are delusional and unable to understand reality like Jared Lee Loughner.  Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was discussed very briefly in the opening paragraph, then dropped, which left a huge opportunity on the table.

Next, I realize the SotU address is political theatre, but did we really need the theatre of the absurd?

I’m referring, of course, to the ridiculousness of seeing the Republicans and Democrats uneasily co-existing in front of the President rather than sit on opposite sides as they’ve generally done.  No one looked happy with this, and if it was intended (as was said) to be a “call for civility” in action, it was a dismal failure.

Finally, I re-iterate: what about the jobs?  What about the economy?  What about the high unemployment?  What are you going to do, Mr. President, about any of this, other than pontificate, obfuscate, and talk meaninglessly for over an hour?

The address, Mr. President, was simply too long.   And it wasn’t what we wanted — nay, needed — to hear.

Regardless of the left-wing pundits, the right-wing pundits, the centrist pundits or whatever other pundits may exist . . . and regardless of how some of the SotU address might work in smaller “sound bites” . . . this speech failed the country.  I don’t care what anyone says; I know the truth, as I’m a highly educated woman with a Master’s degree, and I’ve read a lot of history.

This speech was a dismal failure.

We needed to hear that you care, Mr. President.  That you are trying to do something.  And that what you’ll do will take effect this year.  Not next year.  Not the year after that.  Not in 2020.  Not in 2040.  But this year.  Now.   Because things are bad and are getting worse.

That you did not, Mr. President, probably will affect your chances in 2012.  For the worse.  And I can’t believe you don’t have some advisor who isn’t a yes-man up there in Washington, DC, who should’ve told you that this speech was a stinker.  Because if that person did so, you should’ve listened.

The 2011 SotU speech will end up making no difference in the long run, except to cement that you, President Barack Obama, are seen as well-meaning and benevolent, but also out of touch.  Big-time.

——–

** Jason Cordova kindly pointed out that Jared Loughner used a semi-automatic handgun rather than an assault rifle, and he is of course quite right.  The main reason I keep thinking “assault rifle” is how big that clip was that Loughner was using — a legal size, yes, but still, very large.  That doesn’t excuse why I got it wrong even though I’ve heard the term over and over again, of course.  The error has now been corrected, as you see.  BC

Written by Barb Caffrey

January 26, 2011 at 11:28 pm

Posted in Barack Obama, Framing Narrative, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Democrats, Politics, PUMA Democrats, The Economy, United States Politics, United States Presidents

Posted a review at SBR for “Poisoning the Press”

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Folks, if you haven’t read Mark Feldstein’s excellent POISONING THE PRESS: JACK ANDERSON, RICHARD NIXON, AND THE RISE OF WASHINGTON’S SCANDAL CULTURE, go out and grab it, right now.  It is an outstanding piece of history and is possibly the most riveting, exceptional book I’ve read all year (it’ll easily make my ten-best list).

But in case you need a little bit more information, here’s my review:

http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/mark-feldsteins-poisoning-the-press-is-excellent-and-true/

Written by Barb Caffrey

December 28, 2010 at 12:47 am

Posted in Book reviews, Public figures, Truly horrible behavior, United States Politics, United States Presidents

Pass Unemployment Benefits Extension NOW, Congress

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I don’t have much to say today beyond this — but it’s important.

The United States Congress has become increasingly out of touch, which has been shown this week by them first debating a food safety bill, then passing a resolution to outlaw “loud commercials,” and finally taking up the middle-class “tax cut” (actually an extension of the Bush-era lower taxation) rather than deal with the biggest issues on the table — one of which is unemployment.

We’re now at 9.8% unemployment — just .2% under 10%, mind you (in case you’re mathematically challenged, as I tend to be some days) — and there are many people who aren’t even on the rolls any longer because they’ve “maxed out” their unemployment at 99 weeks, yet still have no jobs because very few jobs are being created.  We can argue about how best to create jobs at a later time; right now, those on unemployment need help.

We’re at the holiday season.  Christmas, the biggest holiday in the United States, fast approaches — yet the Congress is willing to let those on unemployment suffer?  What’s wrong with these people?

I am disgusted that so few of the Congressional Democrats have been quoted about this issue, and how even fewer Republicans have discussed it — the only Republicans who have mostly talk in the Washingtonian-speak of “we must cut the deficit first” and apparently all of us unemployed (as I’m one of that number) can go and be damned.

It’s time for our Congress to do something good.  Pass the unemployment benefits extension NOW, Congress — then worry about funding yourself (as that’s the second most urgent problem on the table) and only then worry about the damned tax cuts for the richest 1% in the nation (I’m looking squarely at you, Congressional Republicans).

If you do this, you’ll have proven that you care, that you have a heart, or at least that you understand political reality.  Because letting 2 million people starve at the holidays is not only inhumane, it will definitely lose you votes at the next election.  (People don’t tend to forget about starvation.)

By the way, I’d appreciate it if Barack Obama, the President of the United States, would come out and roundly condemn the Congress because of their horrible behavior.

Written by Barb Caffrey

December 3, 2010 at 5:10 pm

Posted in Barack Obama, Congress being utterly stupid, Public figures, Truly horrible behavior, United States Politics, United States Presidents

It’s NOT a Mandate, Folks; Rather, a Repudiation.

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The election is over, but the bloviating goes on.  Today on WTMJ Radio (AM 620 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin), both Governor-elect Scott Walker (Republican) and Senator-elect Ron Johnson (R) used the word “mandate” while presumably wearing a straight face.

Yes, what happened last night is a slap-down for the people presently in power, the Obama Administration and many Democratic Senators and Representatives who followed their lead — along with some who didn’t, but were Democratic incumbents, and got washed out with the tide.

But it’s not — repeat, not — a mandate.  Rather, this is an exercise in the Republicans framing the narrative: they’re doing their level best to show voter rage at not being listened to as a “mandate” for themselves, which shows them to be completely ignorant of recent history.

So I’m going to educate them.  Starting right now.

What happened in this election is what my friends among the Hillary Clinton Democrats (some also under the name PUMA Democrats, with PUMA meaning either “People United Means Action” or “Party Unity My A**”) have been predicting since Barack Obama was named the Democratic nominee over Mrs. Clinton — and that is, many Democrats who were shut out by the Democratic National Committee on 5/31/2008 at their Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting were angry, and joined with the angry Republicans and angry Independents who didn’t feel they were being listened to — and that’s why we have an incoming Republican Speaker of the House (presumably John Boehner from Ohio, though it’s remotely possible the Republicans may select someone else) and a Senate that’s only nominally Democratically-controlled after the election results were known.

What people need to understand is that the Democratic Party fissured as of that moment, 5/31/2008, between those who felt what happened on that day — Barack Obama getting delegates he didn’t earn from Michigan, where he wasn’t on the ballot, and Mrs. Clinton having delegates she fairly earned (because she was on the ballot, and very popular in Michigan) taken away — was OK, and those who felt it was absolutely reprehensible.  Also be reminded that on 5/31/08,  Floridians were told to be happy that their representatives to the Democratic National Convention would only get 1/2 a vote, each — both of those things set badly with over half of the Democratic Party, including many who liked Obama and had voted for him, but could not get behind such blatantly slanted and non-voter-representative tactics.

You see, the DNC (most especially member-and-CNN-analyst Donna Brazile) believed “rules are rules,” and they didn’t care that the voters went out to vote and believed their votes would be respected.  They hid behind fig-leafs such as Florida supposedly voting “too early” when several other states moved up their primary dates as well but no one said word-one to them (most of those were states Obama won handily in), or saying from the beginning, “Oh, that primary doesn’t count because they moved it up without our approval,”  even while Michigan residents were voting in record numbers in their January primary.

Excuse me, DNC, but the voters voted.  They did what they were supposed to do: they voted, and in record numbers.  And they did not care about your rules.  They were told to vote, and they did.  They clearly expressed a preference, one you definitely didn’t like, for Hillary Clinton — and thus, you managed to mute the impact of her historic primary victories.  (Mrs. Clinton was the first woman to ever win a primary in the United States, much less a whole bunch of them.  And she won the most votes from primaries, too; we know that.  Mr. Obama won most of his victories in the caucuses, where many vote totals were disputed; please see Gigi Gaston’s excellent documentary “We Will Not be Silenced” for further details.  Here’s a link:  www.wewillnotbesilenced2008.com — this should help.  I know the movie, in four parts, is available on YouTube.)

The ill-feeling the DNC caused by refusing to listen has not dissipated in the last two years; instead, it’s simmered and boiled over in many cases.  I know that I am still angry and will always be angry at what happened at that meeting, because it showed that the DNC — the governing board of the Democratic Party, more or less — did not care one whit about the voter’s intentions or the voters themselves.  Instead, the DNC decided they knew better than we did, than what the polls were telling them — than what their own common sense should’ve told them if it hadn’t been taking a coffee break.

I know that while many Hillary Dems did what I did — vote for competent, qualified people wherever possible, including Democrats — some were so angry due to what happened on 5/31/08 (where we were told that we did not count, that our votes did not matter, and when our massed voices crying out for justice went unheard) that they voted a straight Republican ticket.

So the Republicans — including those in Wisconsin, where they won control of both the Assembly (the lower house) and the Senate (upper house) — are wrong when they think they have received a “mandate” to do anything.  What they received was the gift of many Democrats who are angry at how Obama was selected in the first place, along with many who were flat-out frustrated at the policies of Harry Reid (who, inexplicably, held his seat in Nevada) and Nancy Pelosi (easily re-elected, but almost assuredly to retire as former Speakers rarely stay in the House after they lose their Speakership).

So if the Republicans think this is a mandate, they are wrong.

What this was, instead, was a repudiation of the tactics of the DNC on 5/31/08, along with a repudiation of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the entirety of the Obama Administration in particular.

If the Republicans take the wrong message from this, and start cutting unemployment benefits, start cutting health care benefits that are already extant, and mess with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, or any of the “social safety net” programs that are so vitally needed with the country as a whole having over 9% reportable unemployment (and more like 17% functional unemployment throughout the USA, with some areas having far more), they will be voted out in turn.

Personally, I am disgusted that Wisconsin voted out Russ Feingold, an 18-year veteran of the Senate.  Feingold is an honest, ethical and principled politician; the only thing he’d ever done that I fully disagreed with was backing Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in 2008 (though he did not like what the DNC did on 5/31/08 any better than anyone else — such was the impression I received).   I voted for Mrs. Clinton in the Wisconsin Primary, and am as disgusted as anyone I know — and enraged, too — about what the DNC did on 5/31/08, but I cast my vote anyway for Feingold because unlike many politicians, he actually explains himself and has taken it upon himself to visit every county in Wisconsin every single year.  (Plus I looked at it this way, as a HRC supporter: Hillary Clinton is a centrist/pragmatist.  She’d want Wisconsin to have the best possible person representing the state, who in my opinion was Russ Feingold, whether or not she gets along with him.)

What we have now in Ron Johnson, the Republican Senator-elect, is a man who is independently wealthy, has no compassion whatsoever (or at least has evinced none), and believes in TANSTAAFL — an abbreviation for what Robert A. Heinlein called “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.”  Which in general is a maxim worth living by — and is one of the most Libertarian philosophies around — but at a time where there’s 17% “real” unemployment in the country and where employers are not adding jobs, so many are getting by with unemployment checks while praying for a miracle (including myself), TANSTAAFL has to be modified, or a whole lot of people are going to end up dead on the streets as if the US of A had become a Third World country overnight.

Now, is that what Ron Johnson wants?  Probably not, but he hasn’t examined his beliefs too closely, either, by all objective analysis — his only two stated “platforms” were to cut taxes (whatever question he was asked, he’d say he’d cut taxes, even if it was something about Medicaid or getting our troops out of Iraq or Afghanistan) and to repeal Obama’s health care overhaul.  And while many in Wisconsin are very nervous about the Obama health care plan because of Ms. Pelosi’s blithe “we won’t know what’s in the bill until we pass it” comment (one of the worst things a sitting Speaker of the House has ever said, and definitely a factor in this election), that doesn’t mean all of it is bad.

Simply put, the main reason businesses go overseas is because of our health care costs — Ron Johnson is right about that.  But sometimes they go to Europe, which has nationalized health care, or China, which has something similar, or Canada, which definitely has nationalized health care, and that’s because the state is paying for the health care — the business is not.  That’s what Obama was trying — and fumbling — to say, and why he seems to feel that an overhaul is necessary because way too many people are falling through the cracks now, and it’ll just get worse if the businesses like HMOs or PPOs keep running healthcare as a for-profit business.

Perhaps Barack Obama’s idea (which may as well be called Nancy Pelosi’s idea) wasn’t the best one.  I definitely think it wasn’t.  But it was at least a small step in the direction our country needs to go in, though to my mind encouraging more low-income clinics to be built and forgiving new-doctor debt if they work in those for a few years seems to be a far better option all the way around.

People are suffering in this country.  I am one of those afflicted, and I am telling you right now that if the Republicans believe this was a “mandate” for anything, they are as wrong today as Barack Obama was wrong in 2008 after he was elected President of the US that his election was a “mandate” for anything whatsoever, except the mandate “we don’t like who we have, so we want someone else, and pray for a miracle.”  But I don’t think that counts.

Written by Barb Caffrey

November 3, 2010 at 3:50 pm

Posted in 5/31/2008 -- a day which shall live in infamy, Barack Obama, Democratic National Committee (DNC), Donna Brazile, Framing Narrative, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Democrats, Language, Nancy Pelosi, Party Unity my A** (PUMA), Politics, Prescient observations, President Obama, PUMA (People United Means Action), PUMA Democrats, Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC), Scott Walker, temporary Governor, The Economy, United States Politics, United States Presidents, Voting, Wisconsin politics

Can Presidents be people, too? Or, why are all recent Presidents so “into themselves?”

with 8 comments

Today, President Obama spoke in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at a Labor Day pep rally down at the Summerfest Grounds (right next to Lake Michigan, located in downtown Milwaukee), and said that the Republicans are talking about him “like a dog.”  (See link at Mediaite, available here:  http://www.mediaite.com/online/pres-obama-on-dc-opponents-%e2%80%9cthey-talk-about-me-like-a-dog%e2%80%9d/ )  President Obama went on for quite some time in this vein, which at first annoyed me because it felt self-absorbed.

I mean, here we are in the US of A sitting at 9.6% overall unemployment for the entire nation, last I checked.  Many people, including myself, are out of work.  Many people, including myself, are looking for work and can’t find any work at all — and yet, while President Obama discussed why he thinks nothing is improving for the nation (the Republicans are blocking many bills in the Senate on procedural grounds, something that is quite possible for them to do under existing rules, even if the R’s in question believe in the bill or bills), it seemed to me that the President saw this whole conflict as being all about him, rather than all about the nation.

Which made me wonder — can Presidents be people, too?  Or will they internalize everything to the point that they can’t quite reach out to the public — rather seeing things like the current US economy as their own, personal failings instead of something that can be fixed with prudent management?

This may seem like an odd question to ask, but think about it: our recent Presidents, from Jimmy Carter onward, have not really known much in the way of privacy.  There has been an exponential degree of media scrutiny, first from regular over-the-air television (1970s), cable TV (started in the ’80s), then the Internet (started in the ’90s), then the profusion of blogs that continues to this day (including this one) that mention the President, whoever the current American President is, and dissect his behavior (still, always, his behavior — maybe next time we will finally get a deserving woman **) from all angles.  And things that are the fault of the President are discussed, as well as things that couldn’t possibly be his fault — this is true of all Presidents in my lifetime, and probably true of all Presidents since the start of the US of A.

Now, it’s obvious that Presidential candidates sign up for the lack of privacy — they know their lives as they knew it are over, or they should.  (Gary Hart didn’t — witness his “monkey business” on the yacht named the same — but he should’ve.)  They know every single thing they say at any rally is taped, or photographed, or videotaped . . . with the expansion of cheap and readily usable technology, Presidential candidates have less privacy than ever before.  And anything the President says — anything a Presidential candidate says — is fair game for the media — for the television (cable and over-the-air), for the radio, for the Internet, for satellite radio/blog talk radio, etc.

Perhaps this is the reason why so many of our Presidents have seemed to be very “into themselves.”  These guys have pollsters dissecting every aspect of their public appeal (or the lack of it) — and remember, nothing is private or off-limits, or at best, very, very little.   So the self-absorption shown by Reagan (who’d been an actor), George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama is not new — but it definitely has grown in my lifetime.

But there’s an obvious reason for that.

Think about it.  If you had pollsters telling you every minute of every day what to wear (gotta have the flag pin; gotta have the power tie, etc.), how to act, how much to smile, how long you can sit with this person, how much time you have to spend with your family before going back out on the road, etc., you might be plenty self-absorbed, too. 

Further, much of the media, even the friendly ones, blame you for everything going on — or so it seems, because that’s what gets the most airplay.  The stories most people are commenting on now have to do with what Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman said on ABC’s Sunday morning program This Week with Christiane Amanpour, quoted at Mediaite under the heading “Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman are Fed Up: ‘Obama has had no Vision,’ available at this link — http://www.mediaite.com/online/paul-krugman-and-tom-friedman-are-fed-up-obama-has-had-no-vision/ , to wit economist (and frequent New York Times op-ed writer) Paul Krugman’s comment:

But what is true on all of this is that Obama has had no vision. He has not articulated a philosophy. What is Obama’s philosophy of government? He wobbles between sounding kind of like a liberal. Then he says, well, the conservatives have some points, too. He concedes the message.

Granted, Paul Krugman is not making a personal attack against the President.  Krugman’s point is that the President’s administration has not articulated enough of a vision to the public to help anyone besides themselves understand what they’re trying to do.  (This is the kindest and gentlest way to explain things, not to summon up one of former President George H. W. Bush’s quotes.)

Then, Tom Friedman (aka Thomas L. Friedman), who also writes for the New York Times, said:

Look, I’m for more health care. I’m glad we’ve extended it to more Americans. But the fact is, there is a real, I think, argument for the case that Obama completely over-read his mandate when he came in.

He was elected to get rid of one man’s job, George Bush, and get the rest of us jobs. I think that was the poor thing. And by starting with health care and not making his first year the year of innovation, expanding economy and expanding jobs, you know, I think, looking back, that was a political mistake.

These are fair criticisms, to my mind, but to anyone sitting as a President they must run all together with the folks who are calling the President a “socialist,” or a “Nazi,” or those who believe the President has a different religion than the one he claims — especially with the 24/7 media.  And that might be why President Obama said that felt like he’d been talked about “like a dog” today — even though to those of us outside the Washington, DC fishbowl, it seems like the President is far more focused on himself than getting the economy taken care of, or the big banks loaning money to the littler banks (as was supposed to happen with those TARP bills), and as if the President is still running for the office of President rather than being the President.

Because being President has usually meant the person holding the office ignores a great deal of negative things said about him.  Otherwise, it’d take too long to get past the negativity — besides, negativity is easy.  (Check any history of the American Presidency if you don’t believe me.  Every candidate, even George Washington, the father of the US of A, had his detractors.)

Even so.  While I get plenty annoyed at the way much of the electorate seems to be ignored when we ask for fiscal accountability (please, tell us where our money is going!  This doesn’t seem to be too much to ask.), I recognize that the Presidential office is a difficult one to hold.  And that perhaps it’s easier for us to hate the officewielder than it is to demand accountability — it all runs together, and it shouldn’t.

I don’t know what the answers are, because it seems to me our technology has outstripped our compassion.   Presidents do need to be held accountable for their beliefs, and how well they act on their promises, and their legislative records, if any — but perhaps scrutinizing every little thing down to the last detail might someday be thought of as counterproductive.  Because just because these guys are our public servants, that doesn’t make them any less human.

So, can our Presidents be people, too?  Or must they always be icons?  Because if they must be the latter, I’m afraid the American public is doomed to eternal disappointment.

—–

**Hillary R. Clinton won the Democratic Primaries (not the caucuses, but the verifiable primary vote).  She is the first woman in history to win one primary, much less a whole bunch of them — much less get 18 million votes overall.  It is possible that someday soon, a qualified female candidate will win the Presidential nomination of her party, and thus I will finally be able to say his or hers, rather than his.

Written by Barb Caffrey

September 6, 2010 at 10:45 pm

Posted in Criticism/critique, Public figures, United States Politics, United States Presidents

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